DEAD SNOW (2009)

Based on the cover art I mistakenly thought that DEAD SNOW was going to be a kick ass horror movie. It wasn't. In fact, for the first 30 minutes or so nothing happened at all. Finally the Nazi zombies show up and they're silly, not scary. Overall, if you have low expectations and are just looking for a good horror movie to get drunk to and watch with a bunch of friends then DEAD SNOW would be an alright choice, but not the best choice.

There is one moment that shows a quick glimpse of how this film could have actually been good: the head in the window. That scene was great and if this movie had actually been serious instead of a lame comedy then it would have been scary as fuck, but instead it was quickly forgotten in the mess of stupid jokes. Example: zombie getting hit by tree limb while riding the snowmobile. Hahahaha, stupid. The comedy highlight of the film was when the dude got bit and then chopped his own arm off. If the entire movie had been as funny as that two minute scene then it would have been a classic.  Here's hoping that if they make a sequel that it will be better. [Edit 07/2021: They did! Part 2 was great.]

Part 2 - Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead (2014)

CABIN FEVER 2: SPRING FEVER (2009)

It's not a good sign when the writer/ director publicly disowns a movie after being denied his request to have his name removed from the credits.

I actually liked the first one cause it was kind of an oddball movie that was something different. Part 2 though is just a disaster. With a name like "Spring Fever" I was expecting it to happen on Spring Break with a bunch of hot chicks in bikini's, but no, it's just a lame and very short tale of the water supply from the original making local high school students sick. After the opening scene there is zero action for nearly 30 minutes, then the prom starts and people get sick, puke, bleed and die. It's very weak and the story is pretty much nonexistent.

The only thing that I even found interesting was the lead actor dude was the corpse rapist from DEAD GIRL. Other than that, this movie could disappear off the face of the Earth and nobody would give a fuck. Skip it. Also, when I say short I'm not bullshitting, the official runtime says 87 minutes, but that's misleading cause it's more like 70. They padded it with the lame intro and shitty credits for probably 5-8 minutes and then the horrible tacked on strip club ending that was probably 10 minutes long and fucking looked like it was filmed in somebody's living room. Avoid this movie!

Part 1 - Cabin Fever (2002)
Part 3 - Cabin Fever 3: Patient Zero (2014)

4BIA (2008)

[Update 02/21/2021: need to redo this entire review and fix the screenshots.]

I hope to Satan this isn't what passes for horror in Thailand.

OK, we have four short stories here:

"Happiness", the interesting for 10 minutes then stupid for the rest story of a cute chick with a broken leg who's hanging out in her apartment. She's bored as fuck so when she's gets a strange text from an unidentified number asking to chat, she's all up for it(stupid). Soon the messages start getting creepy and the girl freaks out. It's all very silly and the ending is fucking stupid.

"Tit for Tat", the worst of the lot mainly due to the extremely annoying style it was filmed. I have no idea why the director felt that having the lights pulsating the entire time would be a good idea, but it drove me fucking nuts! The story is your standard high-school-nerd-bullied-by-bullies-puts-a-curse-on-them revenge bullshit. Very lame, zero suspense, very little blood, but plenty of shitty CGI effects. Fucking horrible.

"In the Middle", four buddies go rafting. One drowns and then haunts the others. Dumb as dirt. One of the guys had a shirt that said "Bullshit" on it, so I smiled at that.

"Last Flight", suspenseless tale of a flight attendant who's banging some chicks wife. The wife dies and her ghost haunts her during a long flight. Stupid as shit and if I'd written such a stupid story I wouldn't even wipe my ass with it. You ever wiped your ass with copy paper? It hurts!

Fuck this movie for boring me. No nudity, no scares, very little blood, no laughs. Fuck this turd. Skip it, I wish I had.

DETROIT METAL CITY (2008)

[Update 02/21/2021: need to redo this entire review and fix the screenshots.]

I rented this solely because the cover looked cool and I like metal. I kinda figured it was going to be lame, but I ended up really enjoying myself. The "metal" I wouldn't consider true metal, but that's my only complaint. That and the fact that Rosa Kato didn't have a 666-second nude scene, but oh well.

The story is pretty funny: a dorky country boy moves to Tokyo and has dreams of singing really goofy love songs, but he accidentally ends up as the lead singer/ guitarist for a Satanic glam metal band called Detroit Metal City. He does it just to pay the bills, but then his worst nightmare comes true: they become famous! To make matters even worse, the girl that he's in love with hates DMC, so naturally this leads to all kinds of mistaken identity hijinks that were pretty goddamn funny. Including one where he has a concert right next door to where he's suppose to meet her for a date, so he ends up running back and forth between the two! There's also a surprisingly sweet moment concerning his mother that I thought really pushed the movie past being funny to actually having a soul and a good message.

The best part of the movie was Ken'ichi Matsuyama's performance. He had me giggling the entire movie. His nerd guy character was so fucking stupid and over the top that I couldn't stop laughing. But then his glam metal guy was completely different to the point that I kept forgetting that it was the nerd guy in makeup. Outstanding performance. I think that if anybody else had been in the role the entire movie would have just ended up stupid.

THE HIDDEN BLADE (2004)

[Update 02/21/2021: need to redo this entire review and fix the screenshots.]

A samurai lives with his elderly mother. They once had a servant girl that he secretly (even to himself?) loved, but she (at the beginning of the film) was married into a merchant family. Fast forward three years and his mother is dead and by chance the samurai bumps in the ex-servant girl in the market. She tries to put on a happy face, but you can see she's hurting inside. Months go by and he continues his day-to-day activities as a lower samurai, which includes learning modern Western weaponry, then while hanging out with his sister he overhears her talking about how the ex-servant girl has be mistreated by her family and sick for two months. Infuriated by this news he goes to her home and finds her suffering from malnutrition and neglected. He takes her home and nurses her back to health. This doesn't sit well with the higher ups, so when an childhood friend of the samurai is found to be secretly plotting against the shogunate our hero is ordered to go kill him.

Anyway, this movie's great, almost as good as THE TWILIGHT SAMURAI, but not quite. I think Hiroyuki Sanada's performance in that film was so perfect that it was impossible for Masatoshi Nagase to match it. Also, the samurai in TTS had two adorable daughter's that would have been orphaned if he died, so that really ratcheted up the tension. All said and done THE HIDDEN BLADE is a excellent film.